A few days ago, my girlfriend was taken into hospital with problems related to her severe asthma (not COVID-19, thank fully!)
Today they decided they're going to have to keep her in for a few more days, so she needed me to bring some stuff to the hospital, which meant I had to reassemble my FZ6 which was still in quite a few bits.
Fortunately I'd done all the major work on the rear of the bike (good job I hadn't decided to do the front fork springs today, otherwise I'd have been well screwed...!), so it was just a matter of putting the pannier racks and top box mounts back on, re-installing the instrument cluster and fairings (although this wasn't quite as simple as it sounds and took a few hours, mostly fiddling and faffing around to get everything lined up and in the right place) and then checking everything worked which, fortunately, it did!
So I ride it down to the garage to do the tyres and get some more petrol, then go around the block a few times to get used to the braided brake lines, new rear shock and 4 degree ignition advancer.
Not a problem, the feel was a bit different, but a little practice, a couple of trial emergency stops etc and everything was fine.
So I stopped off back at home to pick up the top box with her stuff in, put it on the bike, pressed the starter...
... Nada.
Ok, I've had this happen before, I thought it was a problem with the side stand switch (although I had taken it off and checked it and apparently it was working ok), I just put the stand down, flick it back up so it gives a bit of a jolt and it starts...
... Nope.
Try again...
... Bupkis.
Try switching off, switching back on again.
... Still nothing.
Putting it into first, flicking it out again, can work too...
... Not this time, sunshine!
So go back into the house, pick up the Haynes manual, check the fault finding... Hmm, I can hear the relay clicking, it's not buzzing, so the battery is ok, maybe it's the Neutral switch, although the green light in the instrument cluster is on.
Jiggle the gear lever a few times, put it into first, back to neutral.
... Our survey says: UH-UH!!
Ok, let's try bump starting it. Oh, bugger, the street has a pretty steep camber, so push it forward a few millimeters, front brake on, recover, push it forward another few mill... repeat several times until finally I'm on the flat part, try the bump start and...
It works!!
I finally get to the hospital, make sure I park on a *downhill* slope, drop the stuff off, then have to bump it again to ride home.
So it looks like the next thing is to check the sidestand, neutral and clutch switches to find out what's causing this problem.
Oh, and PS, with the new rear shock and braided lines, it does feel much nicer to ride